I could hear her sniff. Then she pulled away and wiped the sleeve of her school jumper across her eyes. ‘I don’t think so, Miss,’ she said. ‘She’s been so lovely, and it’s been so hard for her as well. And my cousins are … well …’ She shrugged.
‘Like all little ones, I expect, sweetheart. Exhausting?’
For which I was rewarded with a wan smile. Perhaps she’d come back to school too soon, I thought. I’d seen that sort of thing before. The bereaved were often buoyed by the attention that surrounds a sudden death, but when lives went back to normal, and the attention began to lessen – that was often when they went down like a ton of bricks. Perhaps what Shona most needed was more opportunity to talk – even just to cry when she needed to, rather than feeling like a visitor, which she must surely do in her aunt’s house right now, with the best will in the world. Always on guard. Always polite. Always being on her best behaviour. And she was clearly a good girl. Not the sort to cause trouble. ‘You know what I think I should do?’ I suggested. ‘I think I should speak to the Head and see if we can’t up your sessions with your counsellor. What d’you think? It seems to me that what might help would be you being able to be you a bit more. To say how you feel without worrying about upsetting anyone. And, of course, I’m always here as well, remember. Always. And you know another trick?’
Shona shook her head. ‘No, Miss. I wish I did.’
I gave her another hug and then I winked. ‘Punch a cushion. Might not be quite as satisfying as bopping Henry,’ I added, ‘but almost as good – you should give it a try. Now,’ I finished, glad to see a bit of colour in her cheeks again. ‘How about we launch a raid on those biscuits?’
After the travails of the morning, the afternoon went like a dream. Kelly was free, which was a big help, and also helped me decide on which scenario would be the best one to film. In the end, and ever mindful of the complexity of Unit politics, we settled on Henry’s – both because of what had happened between him and Shona, and because his effort was both intelligent and relevant.
Re-casting it solo, he had decided to make Molly the teacher instead, with him as a disruptive pupil – one half of the ongoing argument – little Ben as the teaching assistant and the others as fellow pupils. He’d written the two versions, as I’d asked – one with a bad and one with a good outcome – setting out the opening situation as one in which the teacher was trying to teach the children some chemical symbols, while the disruptive pupil was busy throwing pieces of paper when her back was turned, much to the amusement of the other pupils.
In version one, the TA (played by Ben) called out the disruptive child, and castigated him angrily for behaving like an idiot. This caused the pupil to get angry too, throwing his chair on the floor, and flouncing out of the classroom, which led to even more disruption, and the lesson being interrupted, as the other pupils became disruptive then themselves.
In the second version, however, the TA reacted differently. This time he laughed good-naturedly when the teacher turned round to see what the giggles were about, saying, ‘Oh, Miss, it’s just Henry doing his magic tricks again. First it’s the flying paper trick, as you can see, then it’s the one where he magically disappears out of the classroom for a few minutes till you call him back in.’
This caused the other pupils to laugh along with the TA, and made Henry start giggling as well. He then said, ‘Sorry, Miss,’ to Molly. ‘Trust you, Henry,’ she chided mildly, accepting his apology. ‘Now, if you hold on a few more minutes you can do your other trick as well. The one where you tell me the chemical symbols for the first ten elements!’
‘You know what?’ Kelly said, putting down Henry’s workbook. ‘This is brilliant. Not to mention a lesson for me to file away for future use! Seriously, that boy’s a proper dark horse, isn’t he?’
I nodded. Henry really was a conundrum. Given that his problems relating to his peers were thought to stem from a lack of empathy, he had incredible emotional intelligence. And, as we’d suspected would be the case, the kids really seemed to get the rationale behind the ‘good’ outcome, all of them chipping in enthusiastically when we played the film back, and getting the point of how you could use humour to change the mood in a classroom, and that resolving conflicts wasn’t all about shouting.
Of course, in Imogen’s case it wasn’t about any form of vocalisation, and as the day drew to a close, and I watched Shona and Molly and how they managed her, I wondered what sort of dynamic I’d get to see when I visited her at home. Would the grandparents’ conflict-resolution strategies be effective or ineffective? Imogen, too, was a dark horse, and it would be interesting to see.
‘Not that I’m expecting to see much conflict, based on what I’ve seen so far in school,’ I said to Kelly. ‘I know her grandmother’s said she’s very vocal at home, but I don’t think I’ll quite believe it till I actually see it. She’s like a ghost, she really is. Completely biddable, does as she’s told, obviously takes everything in, but in terms of actually contributing she really is just about invisible.’
‘Well, you know what you’re always saying about kids who are angels at school …’ Kelly replied.
That they could be devils at home? That they could. Though, somehow, in this case, I doubted it.
The Hinchcliffes lived only a few streets away from the high school, on a road that was in the middle of a post-war estate. It wasn’t an area I knew well or had much visited but I had the impression of orderly calm and mostly older residents; there were nets at most of the windows, and cars neatly parked off the road on drives, where I felt sure they’d be religiously washed and polished every Sunday. There was also a distinct lack of children to be seen and the neatly mown verges that sat in front of all the houses looked untroubled by the spectre of flying footballs. Indeed, if there were conflict here I imagined it would be more likely to stem from someone letting their bit of grass grow too long.
I walked up a path flanked by rose bushes, mostly still bearing blooms, underneath which sat huddles of pinky-violet ground plants. And the windows, fairly recently double-glazed, by the look of it, were as nicely dressed as the square of emerald lawn. Which made the commotion I could hear as I raised my hand to use the brass door-knocker feel about as incongruous in this setting as it could be.
It was a male voice I heard first, clear as the best crystal, at almost the same moment when the knocker struck the door. ‘I’m warning you,’ he raged, ‘any more of this and you’re out of here. I’m bloody sick of this, you hear me?’
The response came swiftly. ‘Get off me!’ This time the voice was female. ‘Get off! I hate you! I fucking hate you!’
Wondering quite what to do, since my knock had obviously gone unheeded, I grabbed the knocker and rapped again, only louder. This time the response was so fast it made me jump. I could hear a key being turned in the white PVC door, and it suddenly opened, revealing a rather distressed-looking Mrs Hinchcliffe. She blinked at me, then poked her head out and glanced up and down the empty street, before opening the door just wide enough that I could step inside. ‘Come in, Mrs Watson,’ she said, beckoning me to get inside quickly. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, really I am, but as you can see …’
And I could see. And what I saw stopped me in my tracks. Because right there, no more than a few feet away from me, was Imogen, still in her school uniform, but with her hair all over the place, and looking more like she belonged to the school of hard knocks than our local comp. She was swinging her arms about wildly, obviously trying to thump her grandfather.
It was with almost a sense of déjà vu that I watched Mr Hinchcliffe trying to restrain her, holding on to her wrists and trying to pin her safely against the wall. And the next shock was the realisation that the voice I’d heard before had